Value Subtracted @ ValueSubtracted @startrek.website

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“Unfortunately Discovery’s loss was our gain. So they basically said, ‘Look, we think we’re done after four seasons.’ And we said, ‘Hey, what about our whole ‘Let’s get the fans to the TOS era,’ because what happens to all these people, and how does this person will come up?’ And they were like, ‘No, that’s fair. That’s true.’ And they said, ‘What do you need to get there?’ And we said, ‘Six episodes’ and they said okay.”

“The good news was, when I say ‘they,’ really the folks who make this show wanted this to happen too, but there are fiscal constraints that are real. You know what’s going on with Paramount. So to move things forward in that environment was a challenge, but everybody—CBS, Paramount, Strange New Worlds, and [Alex Kurtzman’s production company] Secret Hideout were all pulling in the same direction. And that’s how we ended up getting six episodes. So it was a wasn’t really a negotiation, but it was a heavy lift for pretty much everybody, because everybody wanted not to have another Discovery circumstance where it felt abrogated in a way that wasn’t thorough.”

Surprisingly candid stuff. I'm glad that some of the CBS pencil-pushers are creative-minded enough to make this happen.

Direct YouTube link to this bit of silliness.

Yeah, I'm honestly thrilled with how it turned out.

I’ve been saying for a while now that they need to recapture the feeling of this episode for the Daleks, where they’re actually a significant threat.

This is almost enough to be its own thread. I agree...but I'm also not sure it's possible.

There are certain villains in sci-fi that are set up for inevitable diminishing returns. Usually, it's because they are (a) immensely powerful, and (b) single-minded. I think the Daleks and the Cybermen fall into this grouping, as do Star Trek's Borg.

When you set up an enemy like that...it seems like you can only really use them once or twice before you have to start making changes. Either they have to get less threatening, because otherwise it's ridiculous that they keep getting beaten, or you have to start tweaking the "single-minded" aspect of them to find new storytelling angles.

With the Daleks, they've done both since 2005, to varying degrees of success. Hell, this episode does it to an extent, giving the Dalek a mutation to allow it to be unwilling to kill Rose, and eventually declare itself to be...not a Dalek, really.

But to keep them as a powerful, single-minded "kill everything" type of villain...it's just not sustainable, even though they're a powerful metaphor.

As much as I miss the crazy pepper pots, it's probably a good thing that the RTD2 era has given them a "rest" so far (though I quite liked Chibnall's Dalek-centred New Year's specials).

Yeah I'm not super familiar with the podcasting world, but I think they have technology that stitches current ads into the back catalogue.

It seemed like the Federation thing to do.

Next year, we'll probably go smaller.

Big thanks to everyone involved - I had a blast, and truly appreciated the collaboration in bringing a fairly large starship to life!

Yeah, he cobbled together a fake Gorn transponder, and built a trap out of force fields and fake biosigns.

But he probably gave accurate time estimates like a rank amateur.

Don't they have a table or something this year?

I think it looks great!

I'm no longer available today, but I was working on replacing the light blue pixels with light grey - it just seems to look better.

If anyone is able to finish that, awesome. If not...still awesome!

The first perfect, or nigh-perfect of the revived series.

This episode does a couple of things exceptionally well. Firstly, it introduces the Daleks to a new audience. In doing so, they take something that's unquestionably goofy-looking and goofy-sounding, and making it seem like a credible threat. The second the Doctor sees the Dalek, he absolutely panics, begging to be let out of the room. This leads to Eccleston spending the episode showing his true range, from that panic, to sorrow, to rage. It's superb.

Related to that, we get the more complete update on what, exactly, the Last Time War was, and how it has affected the Doctor. He's burdened by what he's done, and what he's lost, but won't hesitate to justify it, and even gloat about it if the situation calls for it.

The supporting cast is quite good, too. Van Statten is the sort of character that often doesn't land well on this series, but he works pretty well. Hiring an American actor to play the prominent American character helps a lot, and his dialogue seems more effective than "American" dialogue on Doctor Who often does. Anna Louise-Plowman is also pretty memorable in a role that would normally be a bit of a throwaway.

The episode is adapted from the Sixth Doctor audio story "Jubilee" - I've never listened to it, but the wiki summary suggests quite a lot was changed.

I guess the last thing I'll note is that the gimmick of Rose's DNA somehow repowering the Dalek is pretty silly, but its the sort of silly that makes a good story work.

I'm sure there's loads more to say - I'm looking forward to hearing what others think!

Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and enourage everyone to get creative with the dish, and find what looks best. A blue/red combo that resembles the show should probably be possible.

I ran into an issue where once I was logged in, I had to close the tab and re-launch the template from the link in the post. Annoying, but it worked.

It's fine for the Enterprise to have corporate sponsors...right?

Here's what I'm going with for the colour replacement:

The darkest green in the template = "medium grey"

The lighter green = "light grey"

White = "light grey"

Light blue = "light grey"

Leaving the other ones on top is exactly the plan!

People are already drawing "over" our template - this is absolutely fine, since they almost certainly can't see it, or what we're doing.

I think it will be cool if we can just go "around" their stuff, so it appears that the Enterprise is in the background of whatever they're doing.

I'm glad they made the call - I'm certain the same thing would have happened had there been a game in Winnipeg this week.

I don't know about "quickly" - at the rate they're going, the show won't end until 2028...

I'd be happy to move the Enterprise to a more clear space - is there an obvious way to do that that I'm missing?